High Rising (VMC)

by Angela Thirkell

  After one unusually trying day when the old lady had insisted on sending for him three times, ostensibly because she had palpitations, but really to tell him to order an ambulance from the county hospital to take her revolting little dog for a drive, he had expressed his opinion to Miss Todd.

  ‘I wish your mother were certifiable,’ said he frankly, kicking the revolting little dog quite kindly off the hearth-rug. ‘A week of it would kill me, and you have to stick it day in, day out.’

  ‘Oh, it might be worse,’ said Miss Todd. ‘It’s quite harmless, and Louisa is rather proud of her. It’s quite a distinction to be in service where there’s a dotty old lady. What sometimes gets me down is answering the same question ten times in an hour. So long as I don’t go dotty myself, and the money lasts out, it’ll be all right.’

  ‘Well, you’re a good woman. And as for the money – don’t look at me with an independent expression, for that’s only stupid pride – I may as well say that there’s nothing I can do for your mother, unless her heart or her mental condition suddenly get worse, so it’s no use coming as a doctor. But if you’ll let me drop in occasionally and give a friendly look round, that won’t hurt anyone.’

  Miss Todd gulped. ‘I’ll take your charity,’ she said. ‘There isn’t anyone else’s in the world I’d take,’ and went out of the room in tears.

  The subject of money was not mentioned again at the time, but when Miss Todd began going to Mrs Morland as secretary, she insisted on having an account from Dr Ford, much to his annoyance. He persuaded, he blustered, he was almost pathetic, but Miss Todd stood firm. All he could do was to talk to her in her front garden instead of in her drawing-room, and put her fees, which she luckily paid in cash, into his safe, in an envelope marked Property of Miss Anne Todd left with me for safe keeping.

  Mrs Mallow answered the bell, carrying a large live duck by the legs.

  ‘Annie’s mother’s brought a duck this morning, sir. If I can get it reasonable, would you like it for your dinner? It’s a nice fat bird,’ she added, poking the unhappy duck which emitted a loud quack.

  ‘Put the animal the right way up!’ shouted the doctor. ‘Do you think I can eat anything I’ve seen carried about upsidedown? Good God, woman, the poor creature’s blood will go to its head.’

  Mrs Mallow mildly put the duck on the floor, where it felt far from at its ease, and rushed backwards and forwards, squawking and flapping its wings.

  ‘You was wanting something, sir?’ she asked.

  ‘The railway guide,’ snapped the doctor.

  ‘What you haven’t used for shaving papers, sir, is in the dressing-room. I’ll get it.’

  She came back with the remains of a railway guide in her hand.

  ‘Confound it. I’ve used up to Exeter,’ said Dr Ford angrily, ‘and I wanted Bournemouth.’

  ‘Shall I telephone to the station, sir?’ asked Mrs Mallow.

  ‘No, I will. And take that bird away, and don’t let me see it again.’

  Mrs Mallow, without appearing to exert herself at all, caught the duck, and departed as serenely as she had come, holding it by the legs, head downwards. A minute afterwards it breathed its last under Annie’s mother’s experienced hands, and was much appreciated by the doctor the following evening.

  Having got the time of Miss Todd’s arrival from the station-master at Stoke Dry, Dr Ford went out on his rounds, timing them so that he would meet the Bournemouth train. Miss Todd was already helping her mother out of the carriage when he arrived, so he helped to get the old lady down and carried the suitcases.

  ‘I’ll drive you home myself,’ he said, ‘and have a look at your mother as soon as she’s rested.’

  They all packed into the two-seater, where Mrs Todd, whose intellect, if not her heart, appeared to have derived benefit from the sea air, conversed in a sprightly way about their hotel at Bournemouth and the shops.

  ‘Shops were the trouble,’ said Miss Todd, who had acquired the habit of speaking of her maternal parent as if she were stone deaf. ‘Mother wanted to give orders on her usual scale. But when I told them she was dotty, they were quite decent. The hotel people thought she was very rich and a bit eccentric. How do you think she looks?’

  ‘Wait till I’ve seen her properly. What about you? Not much of a rest, was it?’

  ‘Mrs Morland back?’ asked Miss Todd, ignoring his question.

  ‘Yes. She and Tony came down on Tuesday. And I have a message for you. She says, will you come up to tea this afternoon. Her publisher is coming, and she may want you about some business. But not if it is inconvenient, she said.’

  ‘I’ll come. I’ve missed the work terribly. Will you be an angel and ring her up for me and let her know? Mother will be all right. You can have a chat with her when you come, and then our Louisa will love to hear all about Bournemouth, and give Mother her tea.’

  ‘I might drop in and give you a lift back.’

  ‘Hardly worth while, unless you are coming back that way.’

  ‘I am.’

  Mrs Todd was safely decanted into her own house and received by Louisa and the revolting little dog, while Dr Ford went home to lunch.

  Adrian Coates, driving himself down from London in a rather glorious car, got to High Rising in time for lunch. If Adrian had a touch of Jewish blood, it was all to the good in his business capacity and in his dark handsomeness. One could hardly question Adrian himself about it, but the suspicion was an immense comfort to such of his brother publishers as were being less successful on a purely Christian basis. They had nearly all, at various times, attempted to wrest Laura from his clutches, but she preferred to remain there. Johns and Fairfield, of whom we have already heard Mr Knox’s extremely untrustworthy opinion, had laid determined siege to her.

  ‘You should consider your own interests a little, Mrs Morland,’ said Johns (or Fairfield), persuasively, at a lunch party given by George Knox at his instigation. ‘Our friend Coates is a remarkable man in his way, a real flair for discovering talent, as we know; excellent at preparing the ground; but he has not, cannot in the nature of things, have the standing we have. With our immense resources we can give you double the advertisement you are at present having. If you have something new and delightful in preparation, and are not yet committed to Coates, may we have the pleasure of having a first sight of your manuscript?’

  ‘Well, you see,’ said Laura, ‘what I say about advertising is, if you spend all that money on advertisements, it’s got to come off my royalties, hasn’t it?’

  At this striking view of the uses of advertisement, Mr Johns (whom we may as well call by that name, for Laura never discovered, or remembered to ask, which of the firm he was) was so staggered that he had nothing to say. So Laura calmly continued, ‘And I like dealing with my publisher direct. If I came to you I’d have to see underlings half the time, but I can always see Adrian whenever I like. And then he hasn’t got a wife, so there’s no bother about being asked to dinners and that sort of thing.’

  Again Mr Johns was stupefied, though Laura had not the slightest idea that he was celebrated for the appallingly dull banquets which his lion-hunting American wife forced him to give four or five times a year.

  ‘So thank you ever so much,’ said Laura, turning her charming tired eyes on Mr Johns, and pushing some loose ends of hair under her hat, ‘but really I think I’m very well as I am, and anyway I’ve got a new contract for three more books on very good terms.’

  This was pure showing off, as Laura had very little notion of what terms, good or bad, should be. But as she got a good deal more money on each book she wrote, she was quite contented – and if she had known it, she was getting very good treatment as well.

  Luckily George Knox had been deserted by the lady on his other side for a few moments, which he had employed in listening to this peculiar conversation. He could hardly wait for lunch to be over, so eager was he to get Laura alone.

  ‘Oh, you pearl, you pearl,’ he exclaimed, taking both her hands
and waving them up and down. ‘By Jove, I like the way you tackled that devil. Dull dinner parties! When I think of his wife and the agonies – eternal agonies, dear Laura – that I have to sit through, it does me good to think of the way you set him down.’

  Poor Laura, much distressed, offered to go and apologise to Mr Johns, but was dissuaded by George Knox, who said it would only make matters worse. With his usual indiscretion he then told everyone he met what had happened, including Adrian, who was immensely pleased and touched by Laura’s confidence, and delighted by the snub to Johns.

  ‘That woman is a heavenly fool,’ he confided to George Knox. ‘She appears to take anything I do for her in the business line as a personal favour, and thanks me for what she is paying for. If I were a swindler—But look here, Knox, to take a leaf out of Johns’s book, what about letting me see a manuscript of yours?’

  This was not very seriously meant, but George Knox used such overwhelming wealth of verbiage and circumlocution in refusing the suggestion, that Adrian heartily regretted his mild joke.

  As Adrian drew up at Laura’s door, Tony came round the corner of the house, with an abstracted air.

  ‘Hullo, Tony,’ said Adrian, getting out.

  ‘Hullo, sir. Oh, Mr Coates, what would you say was the best name for an engine? Princess Elizabeth or Titley Court?’

  ‘Princess Elizabeth, undoubtedly.’

  Tony’s face fell.

  ‘But Princess Elizabeth is only a two-four-nought, and the Titley Court is four-six-nought.’

  ‘What on earth does that mean?’

  ‘Oh, sir, didn’t you know that? The Princess Elizabeth has two bogey wheels and four driving wheels, and the Titley Court has four bogies and six driving wheels. Titley Court is a lovely engine. It costs thirteen guineas, and I am going to save up. I got about two pounds ten last Christmas, so if I saved up every year, I could get the Titley Court in nearly six years.’

  Unable to stem this flood of information, Adrian went into the house, followed by the railway expert.

  ‘You see, sir, I could get the Titley Court in clockwork, or steam driven with methylated spirit, or coal. And if I had coal, I could get a real tank to fill the boiler from. Wouldn’t it look splendid if I had an accident, and the Titley Court was really derailed, and lay puffing out steam?’

  ‘Go and wash, Tony,’ said his mother, appearing from upstairs. ‘Come in, Adrian, and take your coat off. Your hands are as cold as ice. It’s beginning to freeze, I think. Had you better put a rug over the radiator?’

  ‘It’s got a little quilt-affair of its own, thank you. But I’m terribly hungry.’

  ‘That’s good news,’ said Stoker from the dining-room door. ‘Here’s lunch, and I do like to see a gentleman hungry. It’s a steak-and-kidney pudding, Mr Coates. Do you good – you’re not so stout as you was.’

  ‘Bless you for the kind word, Stoker.’

  ‘Dr Ford rang up,’ said Stoker to her mistress, as she handed the vegetables, ‘to say Miss Todd will be up to tea, and he will look in and fetch her.’

  ‘Thanks, Stoker, you needn’t wait. Not,’ she added as Stoker left the room, ‘that it’s any good saying that, because she’ll be back with the next course soon, and start talking again, and I can’t send her away twice. I sometimes wish I could lock her and Tony and George Knox up in a cell, and see which would talk the other to death.’

  ‘I’d back Tony,’ said Adrian, with conviction. ‘He has youth on his side as well as unholy fluency.’

  ‘Mother,’ began the subject of this unsympathetic comment, ‘Mr Coates thinks Princess Elizabeth, but he didn’t know the Titley Court was really a better engine. You see, the Princess Elizabeth is only two-four-nought, and the Titley Court—’

  ‘Be quiet, Tony. I apologise for this nursery meal, Adrian. Tell me what you have come about, if it isn’t a bore.’

  Adrian plunged into an explanation of cheap editions, their advantages and disadvantages, which lasted through apple fritters and cheese. He was so carried away by his own enthusiasm that Laura remarked, without heat:

  ‘I think I’ll put you in the cell too, Adrian. Poor Stoker hasn’t been able to get a word in since we started lunch. Yes, Tony, you can be excused. Coffee in the drawing-room, please, Stoker.’

  The business in hand took some time to discuss, and it is doubtful whether Laura was much wiser at the end than at the beginning, for all her air of intelligence. But Adrian had clarified his own plans to himself, and laid the foundation of an edition which was to help a good deal towards supporting Laura’s old age. Also Laura was not paying much attention, being wrapt in pleasant day-dreams about Adrian and Sibyl. What could be more delightful than to interest Adrian in Sibyl through her writing, and so begin a romance? Laura had never succeeded in persuading Sibyl to show her anything, and the child showed a commendable disinclination to rush into print in early youth. George Knox had spoken with enthusiasm of what Sibyl was going to do, though with a spaciousness which left Laura rather vague as to whether Sibyl was writing a novel, a short story, poetry, a play, biography, or literary essays. Something she must have in her, with that father, brought up among books as she was. Perhaps Miss Grey’s plan for getting her to London would really be a good thing, and give her self-confidence. At any rate, she and Adrian should meet that very day; that could do no harm. And perhaps George Knox would let Adrian publish all his books if he married his daughter, thought the ignorant Laura.

  She was roused from these pleasant speculations by a touch on her arm, and returning to daily life with a jerk, saw that Adrian was solemnly handing her two large hairpins.

  ‘Have you heard a single word I’ve been saying, Laura?’ he asked in affectionate exasperation. ‘You have been lying back in your chair with pins dropping from your head like the last rose of summer, and quite obviously not paying the slightest attention. I know my conversation is dull, but when I’m trying to make your fortune, Laura dear, don’t you think you might try to understand?’

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ said Laura, replacing the pins, ‘but it’s no good my saying anything, because you always know better than I do, and anyway it will be your fortune as well as mine. And I expect you are still quite honest. What do you want me to do? Go to one of those literary agents and pay him to make bad blood between us?’

  To this novel view of a literary agent’s functions, Adrian could say nothing. So Laura went on, ‘Nonsense, Adrian. You send me a contract, and I’ll get George Knox to read it, and he will say everything is a hundred per cent too little, and that will give me a pretty good idea that your terms are all right.’

  ‘Laura, you will drive me mad. Is this the way to do business? George Knox is a grasping, over-reaching old owl. For heaven’s sake don’t take his advice. Get your lawyer on to it, but not Knox.’

  ‘I never meant to. When I see reason to mistrust you, Adrian, I’ll make a frightful row. Till then, what you say goes.’

  ‘Which makes you more of a weight on my conscience than ten grasping authors,’ said Adrian resignedly.

  ‘Then that’s all right. Now don’t be too hard on George, because his daughter is coming to tea and she is writing something – I don’t know what – and if it is at all in your line you might get in ahead of Johns and Fairfield. I know George thinks well of it, but no one has seen it. So be nice to the child, because she is young and shy. By the way, you have a new admirer in this neighbourhood.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘George’s secretary. She has a secret passion for you, on account of your poems, and she has your photograph out of some paper.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Adrian, ‘I must be getting back to town at once.’

  ‘All right. She isn’t coming to tea. It’s only Sibyl Knox and Anne Todd, whom you do know. I thought we might need her. And I said tea at four, so you can get back in plenty of time. I suppose you wouldn’t care to go and see Tony’s railway before tea? He would so love it.’

  Adrian, who liked to please th
e goose that laid his golden eggs, and also was genuinely fond of the goose’s child, in spite of its tongue, pulled himself out of his chair and went upstairs. He had not been long gone when a car drove up. Laura heard Stoker answer the bell. Then that faithful creature appeared mysteriously at the drawing-room door and made incomprehensible signs to Laura, who told her to come and say what it was. Stoker, shutting the door cautiously behind her, advanced with a conspirator’s tread.